


Lady Of The Valley

by taichara



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 07:20:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2339900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is more than one manner of god; and even a thief may yet hold something sacred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lady Of The Valley

Burrowing through the lime-encrusted dust and scalloped flakes of creamy stone, chip-chip-chipping past that first plastered surface at the bottom of the pit-like shaft beneath the mound of boulders and pushing through the infill clogging this first short gallery, the thief felt a surge of of pleasure like fine palm-wine, a shining-hot mixture of nerves and pure lust.

_Oh_ so tempting, that first smooth-plastered false-door, once the blocking-stones of the pit were found and broken. Though old –- the olden dynasty, of a certain –- and heralding a passageway of soft flakes to burrow through basket-by-basket, it bespoke of an old and abandoned House of Eternity indeed.

And yet –- and yet! -- it bore the seal in the dust-dry plaster.

That hated longed-for seal ...

The Jackal-Over-Nine-Captives. The seal of the Great Place, straggling side-valley though it be in.

A royal place, fit to be despoiled by the hands of a vengeful thief.

After season upon season of adzing through the flimsy wooden doors of the pampered courtier's resting-places, coming away with linens and trinkets but little enough wealth –-  
barely enough to keep the City's fat and venal overseers well-bribed, and stave off starvation with the rest --

Now, _now_ , he would at last at last sharpen his skills on a harder task for one lone thief, burrow through their useless protections and find the sun-born bastards that had turned their backs on the villagers of Servants-in-the-Place-of-Truth --

A scratch of stone on stone, near the mouth of the shaft; and the thief froze in his traces, heart stilled silent and tongue gone numb though the heat sang in his veins yet.

Had he been found ...?

One moment passed, two; the stones clattered again, a series of soft thumps. A desert hare.

The thief let out a breath he had not realized he held, stirring up the dust to further mingle in his milky hair.

Finally -– the night half-fled and his nerves singing –- the thief came upon a second sealing, plaster over rough and ill-fitted stone. Without a further thought he pierced the false door through with stolen bronze, pulled coarse cobble-blocks free from their beds, and crept inside.

Unmoved by velvet darkness, he pulled a tiny fat-filled lamp from the waist of his thread-worn kilt, struck bronze against rough stone to catch a spark.

He stood within a further gallery; and as he stalked quickly down its length he ignored the pair of tiny chambers –- mere cubbies, uninteresting –- that flanked him as he passed. The one contained only greenware, foodstuffs for the departed _ka_ ; the other, a pair of servant-statues or their like in gaily-painted stone, tiny glinting vultures rearing their heads above the figures' brows.  
Worthless.

But at the end of the passage the way abruptly opened to the right --

Before him lay but a single rough chamber, once two before dividing walls were cut away roughly; the walls unadorned and left simple stone.  
Dim memory of his kin's old tales of the brilliant scenes their forefathers have crafted in the Great Place –- images of the gods to live within the Eternal Houses -– flickered unbidden through his mind.

What manner of royal Place was this, with but a few well-crafted chairs of cedar; a low-resting bed, delicate chariot and brace of spears, great recurved bow ... his lip curled as he saw the mass of milky vases; tall and graceful things, perhaps, but their precious contents long since gone rancid. Of even less use were the four strange she-headed urns in the shallow wall-niche; he was a thief, and not some death-mad ghoul.

Ah, there, there! -- along one wall, caskets of fine cedar-wood and ebony and gilded sycamore and ivory. A royal lady's jewel-caskets; in those barrel-lidded beauties would lie ornaments fit for royalty and precious flasks of silver and gold and glass ...

Perhaps not entirely a loss, this strange and ancient House – but there was little time for contemplation yet. Work to be done, oh yes.

It was time to deal with the dearly departed, whoever they might be, lest their wayward angry soul come flying back on brilliant wings for unrightful vengeance.

Thrusting his tiny light into an ancient lamp-stand, the thief turned his attention to the rear of the chamber, the dull gleam of ancient resin –- black as a charred corpse -- the shine of glass and brilliant stones, and the glitter of gold.

There, there –- a lady of the house, great outer coffin carved in her image by his now-dishonoured forefather-kin and enwrapped in bright relief like feathers, picked out in blackened resin, face gilded golden like the Sun himself.

Drawing a heavy fighting-knife from the weaponry found around him, the thief cut and twisted the funereal wreaths –- faded lotus and cornflower, persea and mandrake –- into a makeshift torch, a mockery of the great bouquets to honour the dead.

First, to drag the nest of coffins open, to claim the shining baubles sealed inside --

Then to sever the head from her withered throat, and set all ablaze.

No rest in the Field of Reeds for this ancient royal crone.

His preparations made he strolled casually, brazenly to the jewel-bright coffin as his little lamp-fire flickered in the dark -- and froze in heart-struck terror, knife-hand shaking as if palsied.

Old, old indeed, this mighty Royal Wife; revered beyond all mortal ken despite her humble lodgings ...

Hale eye pinned with fear and disbelief, the thief reached out a daring hand to trace the dusty script inlaid like a jeweled river down the coffin's middle --

There! There!

One name of two, all children of the Place of Truth -– now Place of Thieves -– yet learned by rote --

_'Ahmose-Nefertari'_

_'God's Wife, Lady of the Great Place'_

_'Goddess-protector, patroness'_

_'Great mother of Amenhotep-of-the-Forecourt, god-king founder of the Great Place and its village'_

\-- the knife fell with a hollow clatter from a hand gone nerveless, and the thief moaned as the lust-fire of his invasion turned to dark and coldest ice.

_one hundred and one hundred times i fall at your feet_

_i am --_

_forgive --!_

-*-

The dusty patrols of the Chief of Works in the Great Place –- who so seldom saw more than hares in this tiny unused valley –- found the exposed shaft behind the stones, the mounds of chippings upon the desert floor.

Alarmed, they rushed within the sere and ancient House to find a veritable mound of withering flowers –- lotus and papyrus, cornflower and persea, pale lily and cucumber-flower –- heaped upon the coffin of the olden dynasty.

Aught else was touched, save for a crumpled bouquet, a solitary blade;

And the men of the Great Place knew not what to think of what lay before them.  



End file.
